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EPA Plans Could Mean Huge Energy Cost Increases

The U.S. Senate is likely to vote this week on a measure from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases as pollutants. Some argue it will be among the most important environmental votes of this decade. The Weekly Standard contends:

The regulation of greenhouses under the Clean Air Act was triggered by EPA’s determination that such gases pose a danger to human health. This is not because they actually pose any danger to human health, like real pollutants, but rather because their accumulation in the upper atmosphere could contribute to “dangerous warming” by 2050. Carbon dioxide is a ubiquitous product of all economic activity and of everything that breathes.

Giving EPA the power to regulate it is tantamount to letting it control virtually the whole economy. And unlike other pollutants, no effective, commercially practicable control technology exists. Where economic activity is found to produce too much CO2 for EPA standards, that activity will simply have to stop. Hidden deep inside thousands of pages of technocratic jargon is a fact that should focus the attention of everybody. If not stopped this week, EPA’s regulation of greenhouse gases risks an economic catastrophe.

According to some estimates, just in the next two years the new regulations could cost 1.4 million jobs and decrease U.S. business investment by 15 percent. One study estimates that GDP will be half a trillion dollars less by 2030. Another concluded the cost of gasoline will rise by 50 percent, electricity by 50 percent, and natural gas by 75 percent over the next 20 years. Transportation costs are the primary variable in food prices – so food prices will be affected. Low income Americans, who are particularly vulnerable to spikes in energy and food prices, will be hardest hit.

Earlier in the week, we released an Action Alert stating If the EPA moves forward as it plans, dramatic increases in energy costs are just around the corner. Even the EPA admits to huge energy cost increases. It has been estimated that the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulations could reduce business investment between $97 and $290 billion in 2011 and as much as $309 billion in 2014. EPA’s own records indicate that permitting provisions alone will cost applicants $125,000 and 866 hours of burden per facility.

Currently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is pushing forward with its plans to regulate and penalize carbon emissions under the Clean Air Act. The EPA has admitted that regulating greenhouse gases under the Act would subject the business community to an onerous and costly process that will see costs skyrocket. The McConnell Amendment seeks to stop the EPA from moving forward with this process and allow Congress to address the issue.

Congress should pursue common-sense solutions to address greenhouse gas emissions, not to allow the EPA to charge forward with a seriously-flawed, job-killing regulatory strategy.